Fantastical beasts

‘The Shape of Water’ is a return to form for del Toro

Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-language horror/fantasy films, most notably “The Devil’s Backbone” and the Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth,” are his best work. Meanwhile, his English flicks, “Blade II,” the “Hellboy” duology, and his kaiju-smashfest “Pacific Rim,” bring out the awkward-around-girls geek in him. These are technically groundbreaking and unquestionably entertaining movies, made with a self-aware sense of humor by his inner adolescent, who’s shocked by his access to the candy store. Despite their charms, of which I’m largely a fan, there is an artifice to them that contrasts with the sincerity of his early films.

“The Shape of Water” bridges the gap between del Toro’s more personal, supernatural, antiauthoritarian dramas, and his fantastical affinity for features about misunderstood creatures.

Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a mute, sexually-repressed janitor at a government weapons research facility during the birth of the Cold War in the 1960s. Run by the borderline psychotic Col. Strickland (Michael Shannon), Elisa witnesses the arrival of an amphibious humanoid the military captured in the Amazon, which the locals worshiped as a god.

The gill man being a heretofore undiscovered thing, Strickland imprisons it in a pool. He has an eye towards torturing it—particularly after it bites off two of his fingers. Taking pity on the beast, Elisa befriends it, feeding him (it’s—ahem—definitely a him) hard-boiled eggs and teaching him to sign.

When Elisa learns that Strickland’s boss, General Hoyt (Nick Searcy) is intent on killing her weird crush, if only to foil Russian efforts to steal the discovery, she conscripts her garrulous neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins), a lab scientist, Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), and her co-worker, Zelda (Octavia Spencer), for a desperate mission to rescue the equally smitten amphibian.

There’s a sense of growth on del Toro’s part here, which is not something that happens to most at this stage of a career. Sure, his tropes abound—between the design of the creature and his affinity for eggs, you basically have a long-lost relative of Hellboy’s Abe Sapien.

The story, heavily inspired by “The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” is infused with the sexy quirk of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (for some reason “Amelie” kept coming to mind). And as you would expect of del Toro (or Jeunet), it looks amazing—thanks to the lensing of frequent collaborator Dan Laustsen (“Crimson Peak”), who captures the gloomy lab and the derelict charms of Elisa’s vintage apartment building in dank, tactile hues of green and blue.

But as pretty as it looks, that visual ingenuity—like the bathroom scene (you’ll know it when you see it)—beautifully complements the romance at its heart and the performances, both delicate and scenery-chewing, that collectively feel more assured than his recent films.

Hawkins is great as Elisa, imparting waves of emotion without voice, leaving the talking to the often hilarious Jenkins as the desperation of her feelings for the gill man and the threat of Shannon’s Strickland (a character he could play in his sleep) expertly raise the emotional stakes under del Toro’s deft direction.

“The Shape of Water” is a return to form, worthy of a place among del Toro’s early best, and it’s certainly one of the best films of 2017.